San Diego, CA – A natural gas leak in a brand new condominium complex in National City led to an explosion Monday afternoon. The units were within weeks of being ready for occupancy but now at least two of them are going to need extensive repairs.
There were some workmen on scene, but none of them were close enough to the blast to be injured.
Everyone freaked out. We were like, what’s going on? We just heard this loud boom and the whole house shook, said Daniel Disiga who lives in a house right next door to the new condos. He was watching TV with his family when shortly after 4:00pm, a massive explosion went off at the new condo complex next door. I thought the whole thing came down in our backyard but thankfully it didn’t, Disiga said.
But things did come down, most of it from the end unit closest to the street. And then we heard what is glass, we heard the glass just hitting the roof, Disiga said.
And that’s not the only thing that came down. The force of the blast so strong that masonry broke off the building, insulation was blown right out of the attic. The explosion was even powerful enough to bow out the building’s walls.
Over there on the side, you can see some cracks on the side of the house which is a sign of structural damage, Disiga said.
Appeared to have a gas leak in the attic and it hit an ignition source and it’s a substantial amount of damage to this two-story structure, said National City Fire Captain Mike Shoemaker. Shoemaker said the gas leak started in the attic of the unit two down from where the explosion happened. It traveled through the attic until it hit what at this point is still an unknown ignition source.
Apart from the shattered windows, and water everywhere from sprinklers that went off, the power of the explosion was enough to blow the roof up off the building. Capt. Shoemaker said it came back down several inches from where it should be.
Structural engineers will now have to decide whether the end unit especially can be repaired, or whether it will have to come down.
Capt. Shoemaker put a preliminary damage estimate at at least 100-thousand dollars. Of course, depending on what the structural engineers find, it could go a lot higher than that. But again, the one silver lining here is that no one was hurt.